The events recorded in connexion with the second Circuit are as evidently designed to have an historical, as the one event related in connexion with the first Circuit, is to have a doctrinal significance. Out of all the incidents, to which such a circuit must under the circumstances of the case necessarily have given rise, five only are singled out for record. And all five have reference to alleged infringements of the Jewish Law.

That the number of illustrative incidents should correspond with the number of the Books of the Law can hardly excite surprise in the minds of any who recall the evidently significant recurrence of this number throughout the Gospels. The five porches, connected on the one hand with the first Pentecostal Miracle and on the other with a disease which had lasted for the exact period of the penal wandering in the wilderness, the five husbands, the five thousand, the five loaves, the five brethren, the five pounds, the five talents, the five cities, the five yoke of oxen, the five sparrows, the five in one house, the five foolish and the five wise virgins, are all instances of the prominence given to this number throughout our Lord's teaching.

Nor can we fail to notice how natural is the sequence of events by which these "offences" lead up to the combination of Pharisees and Herodians in a plot against our Lord's life; a plot which only issues, first in a more universal healing of all manner of disease and of men from all quarters, and then in a more authoritative and pronounced teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.

The question naturally suggests itself, Did our Lord, during the first two years of His Ministry, attend the Passover at Jerusalem?

It is not enough to say that we have no information on the subject. In the mind of every student of the Gospels there must necessarily be an assumption either in favour of, or against, such an attendance.

A single passage in S. John's Gospel in which Christ, when present at the Feast of Tabernacles in the last year of His Ministry, says "I have done one work and ye all marvel" is generally supposed to imply that He had not been in Jerusalem between the time of His using this expression and the occasion on which that "one work", the miracle at the Pool of the Five Porches, was performed.

But all that this passage necessarily implies is that no special and significant ministerial acts of a similar kind-and which therefore required to be recorded-had been performed.

Looking to the peculiar construction of the Gospel narratives, and especially to the manner in which they single out for record only certain acts manifestly intended to have a special significance, and so illustrate continually the force of S. John's words, "Many other things Jesus did which are not written in this book," and looking to the further fact that Jesus was undoubtedly making a special circuit in Judæa at the time of the second Passover, and that He was probably returning back either close by or through Jerusalem at the time of the third, I cannot help thinking that there are strong grounds for assuming that He did attend that Feast on both occasions.

It will of course be remembered that, save in its exclusive reference to the Jews, it was not the Passover, but the Feast of Pentecost, from which all our Lord's ministerial acts date, that being, in the first year, the time of

His Ministerial Manifesto and the performance of the "one work" of such deep significance, and, in ensuing years, the time of a distinctly new departure, and the gathering of new forces to take part, in His work.

But to pass to the third year of the Ministry.

It is evidently some time after the Passover, and either on, or just about, the time of the. Feast of Pentecost, that the Apostles were finally selected from the great body of Christ's followers, and the Sermon on the spiritual fulfilment of the Law was delivered on the Mount.

The incident next related is again designed to bring into the greatest possible prominence the contrast between the faith of Gentiles and the want of faith in the Jews; the conduct of the Roman centurion, who would not have Christ trouble to come to his house, and wished Him only to 'speak the word,' clearly putting to shame the Jewish nobleman, son of the Kingdom as he was, who would not be satisfied with the word' being spoken, but insisted upon Christ's personal presence, reiterating with increasing earnestness the cry, "Sir, come down."

It is but the same moral which the Gospel story, with somewhat less marked emphasis, has pointed again and again. From the time when Chief Priests and Scribes, who admitted their full knowledge of the prophecies pointing to the birthplace of the Christ, would not only not move a step to welcome Him, but rather gave their aid to Herod to compass His death, whilst the wiser men, with far less means of knowing Him, travelling from afar, hastened to fall down and worship. Him, and to give effect to their adoration by the rarest giftsfrom the time when the faith of Samaritan strangers,

believing on the word of a woman, put to shame the unfaith of Nicodemus and of the Jews who had witnessed His miracles and been unmoved by them-from the time when these same miracles secured The Worker of them acceptance in Galilee, when in Jerusalem, though crowned by a still mightier work, they only led to a desire to kill Him-from the beginning even to the end, when the Jews only mocked at the dying Saviour and left it for the Roman centurion to confess, "Truly this was the Son of God", the whole Gospel story is but a prolonged Commentary on the words of S. John's Preface, "He came unto His own and His own received Him not; but as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the Sons of God; even to them that believe on His Name."

Accordingly at this central and peculiarly critical point of the Ministry-the beginning of the personally-superintended work of the Twelve--we have these facts recognized, and made the subject of the emphatic declaration,

"Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, that many shall come from the East, and from the West, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom of Heaven: but the sons of the Kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness; there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. viii. 10-12).

The next recorded incident, the Raising of the Widow's Son, could not we see at once be placed at any other point in the Ministry without losing something at least of its significance. Just as the Raising of Jairus' Daughter and of Lazarus are complements of two other distinct periods of special teaching, so this is the symbolical complement of the

Sermon on the Mount, and tells of the love and power with which Christ would fain visit and redeem His people; the widow, if we may accept the earliest teaching of the Church, being a lively image of the Jewish nation who had said, "I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children" (Is. xlvii. 8).

From the Raising of the Widow's Son dates the commencement of the Summer Circuit of the third year of Ministry, during which the Apostles serve their Diaconate with Christ Himself, whilst the faithful amongst the women of Galilee are permitted to set an example to their sisters of every age and country of the manner in which that ministry of love should begin, which in the end will secure for them the actual sight of, and welcome by, their Risen Lord.

This Circuit extending through towns and villages which Christ "kept journeying through," "preaching and bringing the good tidings of the Kingdom of God" would seem to have been mainly if not exclusively confined to Galilee.

We have seen that the previous Circuit had probably been interrupted at Sepphoris, the place to which at a later period the Jewish Sanhedrin was removed, and the only place within a short distance of the Sea of Galilee where Pharisees and Herodians were likely to be found in a position to enter into any formal coalition.

Supposing this to have been the case, as Sepphoris and Nain, both in near proximity to Nazareth, are near also to each other, this Summer Circuit practically commenced where the preceding Winter and Spring Circuit had been broken off.

But the public Ministry of the Disciples could hardly commence without some reference to John.